Hand in Glove (16 page)

“I don’t — really, I don’t know.”

“But I think you do. You looked through your own bedroom window and asked if anything was the matter.”

“And nothing was!” Mr. Period ejaculated with a kind of pale triumph. “Nothing! She said so! She said—”

“She said: ‘Nothing in the wide world. Go to bed, darling.”

“Precisely. So exuberant, always!”

“Did you hear anything of the conversation?”

“Nothing!” Mr. Period ejaculated. “Nothing at all! But nothing. I simply heard their voices. And in my opinion she was just being naughty and teasing poor old Hal.”

As Mr. Period could not be dislodged from this position Alleyn made his excuses and sought out Nicola in the study.

She was able to find a copy of yesterday’s
Telegraph
. He read through the obituary notices.

“Look here,” he said, “your employer is in a great taking-on about his correspondence. Did you happen to notice what mail was ready to go out yesterday evening?”

“Yes,” Nicola said. “Two letters.”

“Local addresses?”

“That’s right,” she said uneasily.

“Mind telling me what they were?”

“Well — I mean…”

“All right. Were they to Miss Cartell and Désirée, Lady Bantling?”

“Why ask me,” Nicola said, rather crossly, “if you alread know?”

“I was tricking you, my pretty one, oiled Hawkshaw the detective.”

“Ha-ha, very funny… I suppose,” Nicola sourly remarked.

“Well, only fairly funny.” Alleyn had wandered over to the corner of the room that bore Mr. Period’s illuminated genealogy. “He seems woundily keen on begatteries,” he muttered. “Look at all this. Hung up in a dark spot for modesty’s sake, but framed and hung up, all the same. It’s not an old one. Done at his cost, I’ll be bound.”

“How do you know?”

“If you keep on asking ‘feed’ questions you must expect to be handed the pay-off line. By the paper, gilt and paint.”

“Oh.”

“Where’s Ribblethorpe?”

“Beyond Baynesholme, I think.”

“The Pyke family seems to have come from there.”

“So I’ve been told,” Nicola sighed, “and at some length, poor lamb. He went on and on about it yesterday after luncheon. I think he was working something off.”

“Tell me again about the conversation at lunch.”

Nicola did so and he thanked her.

“I must go,” he said.

“Where to?”

“Oh — up and down in the world seeking whom I may devour. See you later, no doubt.”

As he left the house Alleyn thought: That was all pretty bloody facetious, but the girl makes me feel young. And as he got into the police car he added to himself: But so, after all, does my wife. And that’s what I call being happily married.

“To Baynesholme,” he added, to his driver. On the way there, he sat with his hat cocked forward, noticing that spring was advancing in the countryside and wondering what Désirée Ormsbury, as he remembered her, would look like after all these years. Pretty tough, I daresay, what with one thing and another, he supposed; and when he was shown into her boudoir and she came forward to greet him, he found he had been right.

Désirée was wearing tight pants and an Italian shirt. The shirt was mostly orange and so were her hair and lipstick. Her make-up generally was impressionistic rather than representational and her hands quite desperately haggard.

But when she grinned at him there was the old raffish, disreputable charm he remembered so well, and he thought: “She’s formidable, still.”

“It
is
you, then,” she said hoarsely. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to be you or your brother — George, was he? — who’d turned into a policeman.”

“I wonder at your remembering either of us.”

“I do, though. But of course George turned into a baronet. You’re Rory, the dashing one.”

“You appall me,” Alleyn said.

“You don’t look all that different. I wish I could say as much for myself. Shall we have a drink?”

“Not me, thank you,” Alleyn said, rather startled. He glanced at a clock: it was twenty to three.

“I’ve only just had lunch,” she explained. “I thought brandy might be rather a thing. Where did you have lunch?” She looked at him. “Wait a moment, will you? Sorry. I won’t be long. Have a smoke.” She added over her shoulder as she walked away: “I’m not trying to escape.”

Alleyn lit a cigarette and looked about him. It was a conventional country-house boudoir, with incongruous dabs of Désirée scattered about it in the form of “dotty” bits of French porcelain and one astonishing picture of a nude sprouting green bay leaves and little flags.

There were photographs of Andrew Bantling and a smooth-looking youngish man whom Alleyn supposed must be Désirée’s third husband. It was a rather colourless photograph but he found himself looking at it with a sense of familiarity. He knew the wide-set eyes were grey rather than blue and that the mouth, when smiling, displayed almost perfect teeth. He knew he had heard the voice: a light baritone, lacking colour. He knew he had at some time encountered this man but he couldn’t remember where or when.

“That’s Bimbo,” said Désirée, returning. “My third. We’ve been married a year.” She carried a loaded tray. “I thought you were probably hungry,” she said, putting it on her desk. “You needn’t feel awkward,” she added. She strolled off and lit a cigarette. “Do have it, for God’s sake, after all my trouble getting it. If I’m arrested, I promise I won’t split on you. Eat up.”

“Since you put it like that,” Alleyn rejoined, “I shall, and very gratefully.” He sat down to chicken aspic and salad, bread, butter, cheese, a bottle of lager and something in an oversized cocktail glass.

“Dry martini,” Désirée said. She herself had a generously equipped brandy glass. She picked up a magazine and disappeared into a sofa. “Is that all right?”

By the smell he supposed it to be made up of nine parts gin to one of French. He therefore tipped it quickly into a vase of flowers on the desk and poured out the lager. The chicken aspic was quite excellent.

“Andrew tells me,” Désirée said, “that you seem to think Hal was murdered.”

“Yes, I do.”

“It appears so unlikely, somehow. Unless somebody did it out of irritation. When we were married, I promise you I felt like it often enough. Still, being rid of him I no longer do — or did. If you follow me.”

“Perfectly,” said Alleyn.

“Andrew says it’s all about a kind of booby-trap, he thinks. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“I expected,” Désire said after a pause, “that it would be you asking me the questions.”

“If you fill my mouth with delectable food, how can I?”

“Is it good? I didn’t have any. I never fancy my lunch except for the drinks.
Was
Hal murdered? Honestly?”

“I think so.”

There was a longish silence and then she began to talk about people they had both known and occasions when they had met. This went on for some time. In her offhand way she managed to convey an implicit familiarity. Presently she came up behind him. He could smell her scent, which was sharp and unfamiliar. He knew she was trying to get him off balance, to make him feel vulnerable, sitting there eating and drinking. He also knew, as certainly as if she had made the grossest of advances, that she was perfectly ready for an unconventional interlude. He wondered where her Bimbo had taken himself off to and if Andrew Bantling was in the house. He continued sedately to eat and drink.

“My Bimbo,” she said as if he had spoken aloud, “is having his bit of afternoon kip. We were latish last night. One of my parties. Quite a pure one, but I suppose you know about that.”

“Yes, it sounded a huge success,” Alleyn said politely. He laid down his knife and fork and got up. “That was delicious,” he said. “Thank you
very
much, jolly kind of you to think of it.”

“Not at all,” she murmured, coming at him with cigarettes and a lighter and an ineffable look.

“May we sit down?” Alleyn suggested and noticed that she took a chair facing a glare of uncompromising light: she was evidently one of those rare ugly, provocative women who can’t be bothered taking the usual precautions.

“I’ve got to ask you one or two pretty important questions,” Alleyn said. “And the first is this. Have you by any chance had a letter from Mr. Pyke Period? This morning, perhaps?”

She stared at him. “Golly, yes! I’d forgotten all about it. He must be dotty, poor lamb. How did you know?”

Alleyn disregarded this question. “Why dotty?” he asked.

“Judge for yourself.”

She put a hand on his shoulder, leant across him and pulled out a drawer in her desk, taking her time about it. “Here it is,” she said and dropped a letter in front of him. “Go on,” she said. “Read it.”

It was written in Mr. Period’s old-fashioned hand, on his own letter paper.

“Have you any idea,” Alleyn said, “what he’s driving at?”

“Not a notion. He dined here last night and was normal.”

“Would you have expected another sort of letter from him?”

“Another sort? What sort? Oh! I see what you mean. About Ormsbury, poor brute? He’s dead, you know.”

“Yes.”

“With P.P.’s passion for condolences it would have been more likely. You mean he’s done the wrong thing? So, who was meant to have this one?”

“May I at all events keep it?”

“Do if you want to.”

Alleyn pocketed the letter. “I’d better say at once that you may have been the last person to speak to Harold Cartell,
not
excepting his murderer.”

She had a cigarette ready in her mouth and the flame from the lighter didn’t waver until she drew on it,

“How do you make that out?” she asked easily. “Oh, I know. Somebody’s told you about the balcony scene. Who? Andrew, I suppose, or his girl. Or P.P., of course. He cut in on it from his window.”

“So you had a brace of Romeos in reverse?”

“Like hell I did. Both bald, and me, if we face it, not quite the dewy job either.”

Alleyn found himself at once relishing this speech and knowing that she had intended him to have exactly that reaction.

“The dewy jobs,” he said, “have their limitations.”

“Whereas for me,” Désirée said, suddenly overdoing it, “the sky’s the limit. Did you know that?”

He decided to disregard this and pressed on. “Why,” he asked, “having deposited Mr. Period at his garden gate, did you leave the car, cross the ditch and serenade Mr. Cartell?”

“I saw him at his window and thought it would be fun.”

“What did you say?”

“I think I said: ‘But soft, what light from yonder window breaks?’ ”

“And after that?”

“I really don’t remember. I pulled his leg a bit.”

“Did you tell him you were on the warpath?”

There was a fractional pause before she said: “Well, I must say P.P. has sharp ears for an elderly gent. Yes, I did. It meant nothing.”

“And did you tell him to watch his step?”

“Why,” asked Désirée, “don’t we just let you tell me what I said and leave it at that?”

“Did you tackle him about that boy of yours?”

“All right,” she said, “yes, I did!” And then: “
They
didn’t tell you? Andy and the girl? Have you needled it out of them, you cunning fellow?”

“I’m afraid,” Alleyn prevaricated, “they were too far up the lane and much too concerned with each other to be reliable witnesses.”

“So P.P. — ” She leant forward and touched him. “Look,” she said, “I honestly don’t remember what I said to Hal. I’d had one or two little drinks and was a morsel high.” She waited for a moment and then, with a sharpness that she hadn’t exhibited before, said: “If it was a booby-trap, I hadn’t a chance to set it, had I? Not in full view of those two lovebirds.”

“Who told you about the booby-trap?”

“P.P. told Andy, and Andy told me.…And I drove straight here, to Baynesholme, arriving at twenty-five to twelve. The first couple got back soon afterwards. From then on, I was under the closest imaginable observation. Isn’t that what one calls a watertight alibi?”

“’I shall be glad,” Alleyn said, “to have it confirmed. How do you know you got back at 11:35?”

“The clock in the hall. I was watching the time because of the treasure hunt.”

“Who won?”

“Need you ask? The Moppett and her bully. They probably cheated in some way.”

“Really? How, do you suppose?”

“They heard us plotting about the clues in the afternoon. The last one led back to the loo tank in the downstairs cloakroom.”

“Here?”

“That’s right. Most of the others finally guessed it, but they were too late. Andrew and Nicola didn’t even try, I imagine.”

“Any corroborative evidence, do you remember?”

“Of my alibi?”

“Of your alibi,” Alleyn agreed sedately.

“I don’t know. I think I called out something to Bimbo. He might remember.”

“So he might.… About last night’s serenade to your second husband: did you introduce the subject of your son’s inheritance?”

She burst out laughing; she had a loud, formidable laugh like a female Duke of Wellington. “Do you know,” she said, “I believe I did. Something of the sort. Anything to get a rise.”

“He called on you yesterday afternoon, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “About Flash Len and a car. He was in a great taking-on, poor pet.”

“And on that occasion,” Alleyn persisted, “did you introduce the subject of the inheritance?”

“Did we? Yes, so we did. I told Hal I thought he was behaving jolly shabbily, which was no more than God’s truth.”